"Florence, my son Howard is a thief."
She snatched her hand from her bosom and raised it as if to strike him, but one look of agony from his eyes, and her hand fell. "Judge, how can you say such a thing? Something has tripped your mind, but how could it fall so low?"
"My mind has not been tripped. It is as firm as a rock. And you cannot doubt my word. Last night I saw him stealing money from the safe, as if I had not always supplied all his wants, and at an alarm which I had fixed, little dreaming who the thief might be, he ran away—a thief. You cannot doubt my word."
Stern of countenance and with her eyes piercing him, regal as the barbaric queens we find in ancient fiction, she stood, and the moment of her silence seemed an age to him. "I pity your word and I doubt your eyes."
"You may pretend to, but you cannot in your heart. You must believe me when I say that I saw him."
"You saw a vision. Your eyes have lied to you."
"I saw no vision. My eyes told a heart-breaking truth. Florence, would you marry a thief?"
"Sir, I would marry Howard if I knew that he had stolen a hammer to nail a god to the cross."
The old man wheeled away from her with a cry. "Oh, crumbled hope—"
Mrs. Elbridge swept into the room, gazing at the Judge. "Why, what is the matter?"